1. The Field of the Invention
This invention relates to television systems and, more particularly, to novel Systems and methods for configuring temporary as well as permanent channel lists facilitating easy access to channels contained in the channel lists and facilitating grouping of channels by topic.
2. The Background Art
Before the proliferation of digital technology, televisions used analog components typically including a dial on the television for changing channels. In operation, a user would manually turn the dial in order to advance the channel currently being tuned into the television. With manual dials, a user was required to advance through each channel in the advancement of a channel number. Thus, when unviewable channels were interposed between two viewable channels, a user would have to traverse these channels in order to get from the first viewable channel to the second. With digital technology, many televisions now overcome this disadvantage.
Most televisions having digital technology provide an autoprogramming facility to overcome the problem of requiring a user to navigate through one or more unviewable channels to get to the next viewable channel. A user can autoprogram the television; specifically, the autoprogramming facility scans the channels. As each channel is scanned, those channels containing viewable signals are saved into memory, thereby creating a list of viewable channels. Once created, this standard list of viewable channels may be traversed when a user presses the channel-up button or the channel-down button. Because only the viewable channels were stored, when a user presses the channel-up or channel-down button, the television will advance to the next viewable channel, avoiding the unviewable channels that may exist therebetween.
Even with the autoprogrammed standard list, a user often wades through undesired channels before arriving at the channel the user wants to watch. For example, assume an autoprogramming feature creates a list containing the channels one through ten. If a user is currently watching one and wants to view channel five, the user typically must either (1) use the channel-up button and tune to two, three, four, and then five, or (2) use the channel-down button and tune to ten, nine, eight, seven, six and then five, or (3) use number buttons and press the zero button and then the five button, Requiring a user to navigate through intervening channels is cumbersome. Typically, a user will use the channel-up or channel-down button before resorting to entering the actual channel number on the keypad because using the channel buttons is usually more convenient.
Some facilities were developed by those skilled in the art to somewhat address this problem. One method to enable a user to more quickly get to a channel is to implement a recall method which would recall the last viewed channel at the touch of a button. These devices stored the last viewed channel, and upon a user pressing a recall key, the television would tune to the last viewed channel. This facility made it much easier to get to the last viewed channel. However, this recall method was very limited in that it only provided a user with quick access to the last viewed channel.
Other systems allow access to a channel that is more direct than navigating through the entire list of viewable channels by using extended keypresses. With these systems, a user may store a channel with a key, typically on a remote control. If this key is held down for an extended time (usually several seconds) the television will tune to the previously assigned channel. Despite the added ability to more directly access several channels, this system requires a user to hold a key down for an extended period of time, prolonging the wait to view the desired channel.